The invention relates to a product gripper for picking up a product, comprising two spade blades, a driving means to move the spade blades between a first position, in which the spade blades can be set onto a support for the product to be picked up at oppositely disposed sides of the product to be picked up, and a second position, in which the spade blades are located at least partly beneath the product to be picked up, and comprising a downholder for the fixing of the product to be picked up while the spade blades are moved beneath it, with the downholder being arranged above a spade blade plane defined by the spade blades.
Product grippers of this type are used, for example, in the food industry to transfer food products from a first conveying means to a second conveying means, to sort them or to introduce them into a packaging. The product grippers are typically mounted at the moving part of a robot.
In a known product gripper of the initially named kind, the downholder is formed by a spring-loaded plate which moves into engagement with the upper side of the product on the lowering of the product gripper onto a product to be picked up, is deflected and fixes the product by the restoring force of the compressed spring.